Ancient Aliens on the History Channel - WOW

I posted this on my blog but realized I should have made it a discussion topic...sorry if this annoying, I'm new to the site!

I hope some of you have watched this series 'Ancient Aliens'. I bring it up here, because the 'experts' that are interviewed remind me of supposed experts in the fields of creationism and relgion.

Have any of you watched it? Like a fking train wreck, I try but I can't look away! For those who haven't seen it, 'experts' on possible ancient extra-terrestrial visitors discuss how certain hard-to-explain structures or works of art may have come to be.

Take the Egyptian pyramids for example. An expert will claim something such as "there is simply no way that people 5,000 years ago could have built these pyramids", without any real explanation as to WHY they could not have done it, and immediately jump to the conclusion that they must have been visited by super intelligent aliens who gave them the technology and engineering expertise needed to build such a thing. They go further and surmise that the reason for the mysterious air shafts running through the Great Pyramid were possibly hydrogen refueling stations for alien spacecraft. They then provide absurd drawings and examples of how such a thing would work. They never seem to ask the logical question: why did the aliens stop helping us? why/how did we lose these technologies? why is it that the aliens would teach ancient egyptians how to build a hydrogen storage and refueling station, but none of the technology of how to build a hydrogen fueled craft of their own was ever passed on?

It reminds me very much of a believer blindly following what they read in (or are told is in) the bible. Not thinking for themselves. Not using REASON.

I really don't know where I am going with this post, just curious what, if anything, others here might think about this show and creationists/believers/blind faith in general?

Replies to This Discussion

How did the builders of the Egyptian pyramids illuminate the interior corridors and chambers during construction?
Elizabeth, Web Post

Dr. dig responds:
The Egyptians do not tell us how they illuminated their pyramids. However, the remains of charcoal flecks in the mortar of the pyramids suggest that they used torches and oil lamps. These were certainly used in the Valley of the Kings, where they made the cramped tombs very smoky. The pyramids were built in horizontal layers, and the passages and chambers were included as the walls went up (rather than building the pyramid first, then excavating the passages and chambers within the pyramid mass). Thus, the pyramid builders would work in natural daylight as far as possible.

I said IF an alien spacecraft were found it would cause a lot of rethinking. IF. Nothing has been found. Nothing at all. Not one tiny scrap of physical evidence has ever been found of any extraterrestrial visit. If the fire and the light stuff is true why would that be? Do you know? No. No, you don't. So what are you trying to say? Am I supposed to come to some conclusion here? Based on what?

This may be news to you, Ryan, but the atmosphere has oxygen in it. This is what allows torches to burn. Shocking, I know.

And yes, if the dog was seen, that would be evidence that the dog exists. Got any evidence of your aliens? We're waiting.

No doubt you could provide tons of stories of alien encounters. I can provide tons of stories about encounters with bigfoot. In neither case are personal ancedotes considered to be evidence. Anyone, as you say, can say anything. It's evidence that matters.

You seem to have a strong disdain for sciencce and knowledge, particularly when it disagrees with what you want to believe. Sadly, reality does not care about what you want to be true, only what is.

You mention the bacteria found in meteorites. If you read up on the subject, you'd find that that claim is highly speculative and is not widely acccepted as the science behind the claim is not strong. The scale difference between the patterns in the meteorite and the Earth bacteria they were being compared against is far larger than reasonable and similar patterns can be caused by non-biological means. This does not mean that they are not fossilized traces of bacteria, just that the evidence is not strong enough to justify the claim that they are.

Looking back over the posts, I think that it is less that you have a disdain for science than it is that you seem to have both a much lower bar for standards of evidence in regards to what is possible/likely and an irrationally high standard for what is known. You seem to be willing to accept anything as evidence for what might be but require a 100% certainty for what is known.

The simplest reason that atheism is not a religion is that at its core, atheism is nothing more than someone saying "I don't accept your claim that there is a god/gods". Nothing more. No teachings, no rules to follow or rituals to perform, no mandated beliefs or official dogma. It's really no different than not believing in leprechauns or pixies.

You don't even have to reject the claim for good reasons. While many of us reject the claim that a god exists due to the lack of evidence, there are those who disbelieve for irrational reasons. The Raelians are an excellent example. They don't believe in gods because they believe that all of the myths about gods were caused by visiting aliens who genetically engineered humans. There's no evidence for that either, of course. So, technically they are an atheistic religion, but the religion does not come from their atheism but from the beliefs, rituals, dogmas and such of their alien-worship.

It's a fairly common straw man put forth by those people who have difficulty accepting a different type of worldview than a religious one. They assume that everyone has to be religious about something, and try to turn 'not believing on God' into a faith position when it's no different than their non-belief in flying pigs.

It's also often combined with the claim that all atheists claim to be 100% certain that there is no god, which cannot be proven. While gnostic atheists do exist, they're a definite minority. Much more common are atheists who do not claim certainty.